Frank asked me last week about the Topaz JPEG to RAW AI plugin and if it was any good.

Well, my response after downloading the free trial and messing about with it is this – it’s CRAP!

All it does is create a DNG file or 16 bit TIFF (you pick) from an 8 bit jpeg.

Should you opt for DNG then the DNG is NOT a raw file, it’s just a DNG with 8 bits per channel worth of information rattling around inside it. And if you opt for 16 bit TIFF then you end up with and 8 bit jpeg sitting inside a 16 bit TIFF container.

For the love of God, how the hell does the marketing department at Topaz think they can get away with this total bullshit – Ai learning my arse………….!

Are they trying to make the inexperienced and unknowledgeable actually believe that this expensive bit of garbage can re-engineer 32,000+ bits per channel from a poxy 8 bits per channel?

If you believe that then all I’ll say is that ‘a fool and their money are easily parted’………

Click the image above and it will open in a new window. We are looking at 200% magnification of an are of the original raw file (right), a full resolution jpeg created from that raw file (middle), and a shitty DNG created by this abomination from Topaz on the left.

Notice something about the Topaz image – it’s got more artifacts in it than the original jpeg (middle) because there has been some form of sharpening applied to it by the Topaz software – and yet there are NO controls for any application of sharpening in the Topaz UI.

Let’s take something different – a jpeg of a Clouded Ermine.

Click the image to see what the original jpeg looks like.

Now let’s feed that jpeg into the Topaz JPEG to RAW AI GUI

And now let’s look at a sectional 400% magnification comparison shall we

Sharpening artifacts again and noise that wasn’t there to begin with.

Seriously, you’d be better off tweaking your jpegs in Lightroom!

I do NOT recommend anyone purchase this Topaz product because it’s rubbish. But what concerns me is the manner in which it is being marketed; I see the marketing as just plain misleading.

I’m not dismissing all Topaz software – DeNoise is brilliant for certain tasks.

But Topaz JPEG to RAW AI is nothing short of misleading junk with a huge price tag – Christ, you could buy 12 months subscription to my Patreon Chanel for less!